Day 25

Fiona Keatings | Re:Hope Southside

During fasting week, I was praying for healing and clear direction in a specific area of my life. I felt prompted to set a time frame for these prayers, so I asked God to answer these by May of this year.

Over the following months, God began to open my eyes to things I hadn’t seen before. His gentle voice started to highlight wounds in my heart, but as He revealed them He also spoke His love and truth over them which brought healing to them as quickly as they were highlighted. He restored parts of my identity, deepened my understanding of His love, and gave me a fresh revelation of what it means to have Him as my Father who wants to give good gifts to His children.

When May arrived, He spoke clearly through Isaiah 43, telling me that He was about to do a new thing. Later that week, He gave me a dream that empowered me to see I could change my mind about an area of my life. And by that weekend, every prayer I had been praying was answered and the direction I was seeking was made unmistakably clear.

Although I initially felt some fear about stepping into this new direction, God’s healing and words of guidance left me with nothing but trust and hope. In the weeks that followed, He continued to speak promises over my life, more than I had asked for or imagined, He promised restoration of what had been lost. And now, as I write this in July, I know I’ve already experienced so much of the restoration He promised, and because of His faithfulness, I know there’s so much more to come.

Belinda Petherick-Kerr | Re:Hope West End

My husband and I are privileged to look after our two Edinburgh grandchildren every Monday and our Bearsden grandchild every Thursday.

Every Monday and Thursday, before we arrive to collect them, we stop and ask God to help us to be good grandparents—to keep the children safe, to listen to them and play with them, to give them a happy time, and to share our faith with them. We also ask Him for superhuman strength when we are feeling tired! We remind Him that He will want to answer these prayers because He is a kind and good father and loves to work in families.  

He has answered our prayers every single Monday and Thursday, keeping us safe, blessing us with fun times, giving us opportunities to talk about God (what He is like, what He has done for us), and sometimes to pray with them. At the end of some of the days we have reflected on just how blessed the day has felt—how God has answered our prayers so generously. On other days, we reflect how God has intervened in tricky moments in ways we could not have anticipated. Each day we are so thankful for how He has shown his love for our daughters, sons-in-law and our grandchildren. He is such a kind God.

“Take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life.  Make them known to your children and your children’s children …” Deuteronomy 4:9.

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An often overlooked aspect of God’s character is his kindness (see 1 Corinthians 13). Allow these stories of His kindness to encourage you, especially if you feel God is calling you to a place of risk.